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Monday, 18 February 2013

The Vulnerable Side of a Superwoman...

Angela Fytton,
heroine of Mavis Cheek’s Mrs Fytton’s
Country Life, is an intelligent, liberated woman, she’s enough of a
feminist to want partnership and equality in a relationship, and she has no
intention of ever becoming a doormat. She certainly doesn’t become that, but in
her determination to keep husband Ian happy and worry free (or, perhaps, just
to keep him), she turns herself into the kind of Superwoman who does
everything, and does it all superbly well. She’s the perfect wife and mother,
frighteningly capable and efficient. She helps build Ian’s business, listens to
what he has to say, runs the home faultlessly (she can cook and decorate with
equal ease), never loses her figure or her looks, and is always good in bed.

The thing
that keeps her going is the thought that one day, when the children leave home,
there will be enough cash for Ian to take a back seat at work, so they can
travel the world together, and do the things they’ve always wanted to do. But
Fate has a nasty trick to play...

For just as
Angela’s cherished dream of the future seems within grasp, Ian falls for the
charms of pretty, helpless Binnie who slips on her too-high heels and falls at
his feet. Soon he is married to Binnie, and looks after her and new baby
Tristan just as Angela once cared for him.

Angela (or
Mrs Fytton, as she continues to think of herself), is determined to win back
her husband, but in the meantime she moves into centuries-old Church Ale House in
the wilds of Somerset and settles down to county life in, with bees, chickens,
vegetables and herbs. And a mulberry tree which looks like the back view of a
naked man – the front has been mutilated by the husband of the previous owner.

Gradually she
gets to know the villagers, and find that life is completely different to
anything she has ever known, but she has old Sammy the Pigman to offer advice
and help, and a 300-year-old book of household tips, recipes and remedies for
inspiration. Gradually she gets to know the villagers and country customs, and there's a witchy kind of feel to many of her activities.

We are in
classic Cheek territory here, with an abandoned wife, exploration of women’s
roles and the growth of feminism and self-awareness. And there's some some sharp social satire, not only on the battle between the sexes,
but on family life and the aspirations and pretensions of the middle classes.
Like all her work, it’s a comedy of manners, and it’s very, very funny – I defy
anyone not to laugh at the nightmare meal where Angela tells her family about
her planned move, and the way she manoeuvres her teenage children, by appearing
to insist that they must live with her, but at the same time ensuring they make
their home with Ian and Binnie where, of course, they create chaos (as she
knows they will).

And the
Somerset villagers are wonderful, especially Dave the Bread, an escape from
London who buys out of date speciality bread from the supermarket, removes the
wrappers, and whacks it in the oven before selling it, still warm and smelling
of fresh baking. And his wife Wanda is every bit as canny, using props like
fresh woad growing in the garden and a loom to fool people into thinking she
makes and dyes jumpers, when in actual fact she buys jumpers from charity shops
and boils them up in blue Dylon!

By the end of
the novel Angela has learned a lot about herself, including the fact that she
doesn’t have to be perfect, that she can mistakes, and it’s OK to show that she
is just as vulnerable as anyone else, but it’s not until she shows that
vulnerability that she’s able to reach any kind of satisfactory resolution with
her ex-husband – and whilst she doesn’t exactly win him back, she doesn’t
exactly lose him either.

It’s difficult
to know how to categorise Mavis Cheek (and anyway, should we be trying to
classify authors?). She’s definitely not chick-lit or romantic fiction, but she’s
not writing cutting edge novels which take language and literature in new
directions. There are those who compare Mavis Cheek to Barbara Pym, Elizabeth
Taylor, or even Jane Austen because, like them, she writes about a small,
circumscribed world, and her work is driven by character, not plot. Personally
I don’t think she’s as restrained as those three writers, and although she is
more satiric, she is nowhere near as ascerbic as Muriel Spark or Beryl Bainbridge,
and lacks their dark edge.

I don’t think
I could put a label on her work, but I always enjoy reading her (with the exception
of ‘Getting Back Brahms’, which irritated me beyond measure) and she can be
very thought provoking about relationships, and the way our perceptions of
people can be very different to the way they actually are – and how our
perception of ourselves can also change as we learn more about our own
identity. If you’ve never read any Mavis Cheek give a her a try: ‘Mrs Fytton’s
Country Life’ is excellent, but my favourite is ‘Amenable Women’ where a
modern-day woman unravels a mystery about Anne of Cleves and in so doing
regains a belief in herself.

2 comments:

I've meant to try Mavis Cheek for years, and you've encouraged me afresh! This sort of writer - neither chick-lit nor highbrow nor yet quite middlebrow - is hit-and-miss with me, but in the right mood would definitely hit the spot.